Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

EDUCATION.

CHAPTER I.-INTRODUCTION.

History of Man the History of Mind. The Present Time peculiarly favourable for the Study of Man. The Mind intrinsically great. Until Mind is studied and understood, Education must be impeded.

had actually taken place. Would we there fore know what mind can do; how high it can rise, or how low it can sink,-we must study the records of past ages. The character of our fellow-man in all its phases, in every age or country, is only the type of what we are, of what we might have been, or under similar circumstances may yet become.

Το

OUR world is full of wonders. Everything seems intended by the Creator to excite our The age in which we live is peculiarly curiosity and give us instruction. "The adapted for the study of the human mind. heavens declare the glory of God, and the Until mind had developed itself, and had firmament showeth his handywork." There scope for the exertion of its protean powers, is not a creature he has formed, but, if it could not be known. It was necessary duly understood, would afford materials for to visit it in its various fields of action; to volumes. Among these varied manifesta- record its deeds; and, by means of printing, tions of divine power, wisdom, and love, to stereotype its exploits, and publish them man is the most interesting. Every new to the world, before there could be any cominquiry into the formation of his corporeal plete apparatus for the study of man. frame, shows us the propriety of the devout the first man every thing was new; to us, exclamation of the psalmist, "I am fearfully in the history of mind, there is hardly any and wonderfully formed!" But if the phy- thing "new under the sun." Man has lived siology of man is wonderful, the attributes in every climate; has been subject to nearly and powers of his immortal spirit are still every mode of training; has employed his far more so. In his physical frame he is powers in almost every possible way;-and allied to animals, but his mind associates now we can to a great extent tell what is in him with angels, and demonstrates that he man. Let any particular mode of discipline is the offspring of the Deity. The history be given, and we can to a very great degree of mankind is the history of mind. The of certainty foretel what the character, under cruelty and barbarianism of the savage; the such circumstances, will be. desolations of the warrior; the crimes of the licentious; the oppressions of the tyrant; the superstitions of the idolater; and the infidelity of the sceptic;-are nothing but the deeds of intelligent beings under the influence of ignorance and vice. On the other hand, all that is fascinating in the works of art; all that is beautiful in character, and that is Godlike in philanthropy and benevolence, may be traced to the same immortal principle. Of the evil that mind can effect Satan is an awful illustration; and of the moral and spiritual excellence to which it can rise, the Redeemer is a perfect example. Well has it been said, that the proper study of mankind is man. The natures, qualities, and characters of other beings, afford us much interesting information; but when we study man, we study ourselves. The history of human actions is the register of the thoughts and feelings of persons of like passions with ourselves. The similarity could hardly have been greater if transmigration

The present time is therefore especially suitable for the discussion of the great question of education. The soul of man is no longer unknown. Its powers from the days of Adam until now have been developing themselves. A large and varied range for its thoughts and feelings to luxuriate in has been granted. Man has lived as a Savage, a Barbarian, a Pagan, a Jew, a Turk, an Infidel, and a Christian. The history of one animal is generally the history of the whole species. The horse, the lion, or the eagle, has the same character nearly all the world over. We have reason to believe that the first honey-bee made its cell on the same mathematical principles, and employed the same chemistry in the composition of its wax and honey, as those of last year. What animals do, they generally do perfectly, and never change; but they cannot vary the exercise of their powers, or assume an almost infinite variety of character, and occupy themselves in the most opposite pursuits. There

B

is such a similarlty about them, that of any one species we may generally say, "Ex uno disce omnes." We cannot thus speak of man for though all minds have the same essential attributes, yet their directions may be so various, that to know mankind thoroughly, you must have not merely the history of one individual, but the record of the actions of a very large portion of the human

race.

No one can duly study the history of our world, and yet come to the conclusion that man is a being of mean powers and capacities.

Wherever we find him weak to do good, we behold him, in an equal proportion, mighty to do evil. The soul is essentially active, and therefore will exert itself either virtuously or viciously. Activity is the great and glorious attribute which gives to mind a pre-eminence over matter. Matter is inert and dead. It never originated a single action. It can only move as it is moved, and, when in motion, cannot stop unless it be stopped. Not so the soul. This divine principle must be active. An inert passive soul is an impossibility. It would be as correct to call matter, matter, after it had lost its divisibility, extension, or any other of its essential qualities, as to call mind, mind, after it had become an insensate, thoughtless, inactive thing. But all the activity of the mind may be traced to thought. Its activity is its thinking. Deprive it of thought, and all its mental powers and operations are gone. Without thought, it has no apprehension, no memory, no imagination, no powers of analysis, synthesis, or reasoning, nor, if deprived of thought, would any affections or passions remain. Sympathy, without thought, would differ little from the attraction and gravitation of bodies, or from galvanism or animal magnetism. Man then is essentially a thinking being, and consequently active. He is created to think and act; he is predestinated to the high vocation of thinking and acting for ever. Thought cannot be quenched: it may be misdirected, it may be confined in the range of its observation, it may be prohibited from giving utterance to its opinions and feelings, but still it must think. The infant very early gives us the most pleasing proofs that it thinks. Madness in many instances is the result of too much thought. The clown tells us he has been "thinking;" the captive in his dungeon will often beguile the hours of imprisonment, and even light up his cell by the brilliancy of his thoughts. What poet has yet described, or what philosopher has explored, the various powers of thought? It can blacken the soul with despair, or transport it with hope. It can impregnate itself with melancholy, and pour night around all the beauteous scenes of life; or it can illuminate, and even gild with joy, the most gloomy dispensations. It can make the soul |

[ocr errors]

the habitation of fiends, and render the man a walking pandemonium; or it can become the temple of the Holy Ghost, and vie with seraphs in the purity of its meditations and the fervour of its devotions.

Man is especially great because he is endowed with all the attributes of thought. And this original greatness is not the prerogative of a few, it is the natural inheritance of all. Without pleading for an equality of mental power, we may justly affirm that souls of the smallest natural capacity are, even in their lowest estate, unspeakably great. He who can commit crimes which nothing less than the sacrifice of the Son of God could expiate, and which, unless forgiven, will fill eternity with wailings, cannot be a cipher in creation. It is impossible to overrate the value of the human soul, and none but God himself can estimate the good or evil which it can do. Earth is strewed with the trophies of its ingenuity, and with monuments of its holy or unholy deeds; and the world of spirits is peopled with the victims of its guilt, or the happy intelligences which it has trained for glory.

This, then, is the being which we are called upon to educate. It is an emanation from heaven, a child of God, a wandering spirit on its road to eternity, which we have to train for "glory, honour, immortality, and eternal life." We dare not despise so divine, so majestic a creature. It may be wrapped in the garb of a peasant; it may be slumbering, if souls can slumber, in the meanest hovel :-the Redeemer of man was laid in a manger, without any one except his inspired mother and the angels of heaven suspecting his greatness, yet outward circumstances diminished nothing of his native dignity-so the babe of the peasant, or of the savage, is an incarnation from above, an inspiration from the "Father of Spirits," possessed of all the essential attributes of mind, and destined to run a race coeval with eternity. When looking at the infant man, it would be well for a while to forget its earthly nature, its outward investment of mortality, its parents after the flesh, and raise our thoughts above these things, to its celestial parentage, and its "Father who is in heaven." Every soul born into this world is pre-eminently, and beyond all other creatures which inhabit this earth, a child of God. Every infant is a sacred deposit committed to us by Jehovah, who, with a mother's fondness and solicitude, says to us, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will pay thee thy wages." Marvellous as it may appear, the heirs of glory, the sons and daughters of the King of Kings, the bloodroyal of heaven, are sent into this lower sphere to be nursed and educated for the skies. Tell us not that the infant is the offspring of a slave-that his complexion is not fair, but swarthy—that his parents are ple

beian-that he is sprung from "the hewers | interrogation, "What shall a man be profited

of wood and drawers of water;"-these outward circumstances by no means lessen its dignity, nor in any degree alter its relation ship to the ruler of the universe. The Prince of Wales, though swathed in sackcloth, and sleeping in the arms of a pauper, would still be the son of our queen, and the heir to the British throne. Jesus Christ was as much the Son of God when his mother laid him in the manger, as he was when he ascended to glory, and "sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high." There are some things too intrinsically valuable to admit of an increase or diminution of value. Such is the human soul. You may clothe its body in rags, and yet its native dignity is not decreased one iota; and you may adorn it with purple and fine linen, may decorate it with gold and pearls, and you add nothing to its essential worth. Weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, the soul of a pauper is as weighty as that of a prince. It is the glory of the soul that its essential value is internal, is born with it, and inseparable from its nature. Whatever deterioration may endure must be intellectual and moral; and, even in its fallen state, its original worth as an undying spirit becomes more awfully apparent. Ruins are generally estimated from what they once were, and not from what they are now. Man is great in ruin. Distinction in God's universe is the destiny of every child of Adam. To be great in virtue, or in viciousness, is the lot of every immortal spirit. Even the least and most isolated of sinners that has missed of glory, performed deeds whose influence must be felt through eternity.

We are not fit to enter on national or universal education, until we form a proper estimate of the immortal being which we propose to instruct. Hitherto education has been a commercial, a civil, political, or sectarian affair. We have made it a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. We have hardly asked whence man came, what may be his errand on earth, why such a celestial spirit visits our world, or what may be his destiny hereafter?

"Quo sanguine cretus?

Quidve ferat-quæ sit fiducia capto?" But we have speculated chiefly about his muscular power. How many roods of land he can plough, how much cotton or wool he can spin, what burden of taxation he can be made to bear, or with what agility he can be taught to handle a rifle or brandish a sword. What state, with all its hosts of gaug. ers, has ever yet wished that the human soul should be duly estimated? What commission has yet been appointed to sound its depths? It is now the nineteenth century of our redemption, and yet who is there that feels the full import of our Lord's solemn

if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" We have, it is true, heard much of late respecting education; but then the minimum, rather than the maximum improvement of this heir of glory, has chiefly absorbed our attention and racked our ingenuity. Everything produced by the finger of God is finished. The short-lived lily is clothed in vestments beyond the glory of Solomon; and the flower that comes up in a night, and perishes in a night, is not slighted on account of the brevity of its existence. We also like to see the works of art perfected with the nicest exactness. The marble, the diamond, the emerald, yea, even common utensils of iron and brass, must be polished to the utmost; but man-the soul of man, that celestial gem-we almost entirely neglect, or perhaps mar by our rude and unscientific mode of treatment. It was a deep disgrace to the Jews, that when the Son of God appeared there was no room for him but in a manger. What a wonder that he was not caught up again into heaven! Nothing less than infinite long-suffering would have endured such an insult. Now Jehovah has other children beside his only begotten Son. Every soul born into this world is his offspring. But how have these sons and daughters of the Almighty been treated? Alas! the majority have been doomed to the manger, have been left to herd with animals, and have been trained to be beasts rather than men. In neglecting the infant Redeemer, we have an exhibition of the blindness and ingratitude of one nation; but, in the rude treatment of universal man, the whole world is guilty. In both instances the cause of this inhumanity is in many respects the same. It is said of the brethren of our Lord, "They knew him not." Much of our guilt may be traced to the same cause. The possession of a soul is the glory of man, but the soul is not known. Nothing is so little understood as the immortal spirit. In every human being it is the soul that thinks, and feels, and acts, and speaks; yet who has duly studied himself? Though all the deeds of mankind, which crowd the page of history, are deeds of mind, and are the visible manifestations of the invisible, yet how little have we studied the attributes and character of this spiritual agent. Even those who have undertaken to train and polish it, tell us they know it not; and not unfrequently their ignorance is as fatal as that of the rude operative who, mistaking a diamond for a pebble, shivers it to

atoms.

Mind not known! How strange is this, seeing there is nothing so active, so officious, so perpetually unfolding itself as mind! We ourselves think, and feel, and reason, and contrive, and love, and hate; and what are these operations but the workings of mind?

ties of their own minds, or the intellectual
powers of those committed to their care!
Hence numbers are dismissed from school as
perfectly educated, who, in the true sense of
the word, have received scarcely any mental
culture. For the same reason, some have
come to the conclusion that education is a
failure. Surely horticulture would be a
failure if the gardener were as ignorant of
the characters of his plants, as many of the
instructors of youth are of the properties of
mind. Left to itself the spirit of man
will become one of the most unruly things
in the world; but if guided aright it is one
of the most tractable powers in creation.
The existence of its intelligence removes a
host of difficulties out of the way of its tutors.
He who cultivates plants, or trains animals,
has to deal with insensate matter, or mere
brutish minds: but the soul of a child is all
intelligence; it is a being just like ourselves;
it thinks, and feels, and acts as we do.
can make it understand what we teach, and,
by proper intellectual and moral training,
can call forth all its powers to the most or-
derly and benevolent exertion. Hence it
will be seen that reading is not education,
writing is not education, nor is the old me-
chanical mode of teaching arithmetic, or even
Latin and Greek and French, education.
The cultivation of all the natural faculties of
the soul is the only thing that deserves the
name of education; and this cannot be done
until we more duly study the essential attri-
butes of that immortal principle which we
propose to teach.

We

We have heard human tongues and read lan- | have no definite ideas respecting the faculguages, have studied literature, have seen the locomotive train, the towering castle on the rock and the floating castle on the sea, have handled a telescope, have listened to the harp and the organ, have seen the marble and the canvas animated, have read Shakespear and Milton, and the still sublimer strains of holy writ; and we owe all these wonders to the agency of the invisible mind. Mind is that ingenious thing which has devised and perfected all that we behold in the mechanical or the fime arts. It is that tremendous power which can rage like the tiger, and spread havoc and desolation around. It is that docile principle of which Moses, the prophets, and especially the Son of God, were such distinguished examples. Mind is that godlike thing which can requite evil with good, which can brook every insult, bear and forgive every wrong, and offer itself and its all as a sacrifice on the altar of philanthropy and religion. What are savages in barbarian lands but samples of neglected minds? What was Julius Caesar, or Nero, or Tamerlane, or Voltaire, or Louis XIV., or Charles II., or Turpin, or Greenacre, but specimens of misdirected and degenerate minds? What was Newton, or Arkwright, or Milton, or Howard, or the Apostle Paul, but examples of minds under the guidance of truth and benevolence? To say that we know little of mind, is to confess that we have never paid any proper attention to history, to art, to science, to literature, or to the workings of our own hearts. It is a melancholy fact that men have studied scarcely anything so unphilosophically as themselves; and, as a consequence, few minds have ever as yet been properly trained. Still amidst this almost universal prostration of such godlike powers and faculties, it is some consolation to reflect that all the evil may be traced to negligence; and therefore we have only to bestir ourselves, and use the resources which God has especially placed in our hands, and then in the universal study and cultivation of mind we shall see all the visions of revelation realized, in the intellectual and moral glories of an enlightened and regenerated world.

For want of a more thorough attention to the powers of the human mind, education is yet in its infancy. The mechanic must have some knowledge of the materials on which he is to operate, before he can proceed with certainty. The horticulturist must know the soil and the temperature which his plants require, or he can never bring them to perfection. Men who employ themselves in taming or training animals would never succeed unless they studied their instincts, their dispositions, and their habits. Surely the same knowledge is necessary for those who would discipline the human soul. But how many there are employed in tuition, who

CHAPTER II.

On the Powers of the Mind in reference to Education or the Acquisition of Knowledge. 1. An Aptitude for Knowledge an essential Quality of Mind. 2. A great Desire for Knowledge. 3. The Mind essentially Sensitive. 4. Reception and Apprehension of Knowledge. 5. Retention of Knowledge. 6. The Mind very Active in Using its Knowledge. 7. All the Affections of the Mind the Result of Thought. 8. All our Actions the Effect of Thought. 9. Conscience.

It is intimated by Mr. Hallam, in his 'Introduction to the Literature of Europe,' that Descartes appears to have been the first among philosophers who taught in a clear and distinct manner the immateriality of the soul. Before his time both philosophers and divines recognised the immortality of the mind and its distinctness from the body, yet there is reason to believe that many of them supposed that the soul was rather a species of very refined and etherial matter, than altogether immaterial. The spiritual nature of the soul is a doctrine most intimately connected with education, because it involves

the fact that the properties of mind are essentially different from those of matter; and therefore, in tuition, we must be guided by its peculiar natural attributes. It is to be feared that a very large portion of mankind, and even of the instructors of youth, view the mind as a kind of material machine, and treat it accordingly. Hence for ages the mode of tuition was more adapted for animals, or a species of organized matter, than for intelligent creatures. Physical, rather than moral, means were employed, and the soul under such unna ural and often inhuman treatment was in too many instances injured rather than benefited by its professed instructors.

As hinted in the Introduction, until the powers of the mind are understood, it is utterly impossible to educate them or call them forth into action. Every teacher of youth ought therefore to be thoroughly conversant with the attributes of mind. It would be just as proper to expect that a diamond could | be polished by a labourer who breaks stones on the highway, and who sees no difference between it and a common pebble, as it would be to intrust the young to the care of those who make little distinction between the training of a vine, the breaking-in of a horse, and the education of an immortal spirit.

Much has been said respecting the essential properties of matter, but we have not been as anxious to direct public attention to the essential properties of mind; and yet until this latter subject is well studied and clearly understood, every mode of tuition must be very defective. It is especially necessary to examine this topic, because unless we distinctly understand what are the attributes of mind, and in what their proper cultivation consists, we shall have no standard by which to test the present state of education, nor be able to form any opinion respecting the merits of the many rival modes of tuition. We shall hereafter give some statistics respecting the various schools in the country, but before we do that we deem it important, for the reasons given above, to offer a few remarks on the mind itself, that if possible we may be able to judge of the present mental culture of the great mass of the people, and also to decide respecting what must be done before the nation can be said to be educated.

It is now generally admitted that the mind is immaterial, and that its properties are as opposite as possible to those of matter. Bodies are extended, divisible, of various forms, and are incapable of moving unless they are moved, or, when in motion, of stopping unless they are stopped. But the mind has exhibited none of these properties. We never heard of any one who was able to take its dimensions, to separate one part from another, or to ascertain its form. Angels or spirits, when they have been seen, have as

sumed a corporeal appearance. Indeed, without this it is a query whether they could have been visible to such organs as ours. Still the mind, though concealed from our view, affords as satisfactory evidence of its existence and attributes as we have of any substance which we taste, handle, or feel. We believe that the following propositions will be admitted to be correct by most persons who have examined the operations of their own minds :—

I. An aptitude for knowledge is an essential quality of mind.

The mind of man is that percipient being which receives ideas or knowledge, and then employs in various ways its mental resources. The capacity to acquire knowledge and to use it may be said to be the chief essential quality of mind. Where this power is not found, we consider that all the principal attributes of an immortal spirit are wanting. The soul is essentially percipient and active. Its activity also depends upon its perception. Human action is thought in action, but where there are no thoughts there can be no intellectual or voluntary action. Action without thought or volition would differ nothing from the motion of a river, or the revolution of the wheels of a steam-carriage. It would scarcely be rash to affirm that, apart from mind, there would be no motion in the universe, and that all the changes of place or form which bodies undergo may be traced to created or uncreated intelligence. Hence man is associated with God, and his soul, as the storehouse of knowledge, and as an ever-active principle, affords the clearest evidence of its divine origin and relationship to the Deity.

The various terms employed to designate this thinking and active principle in man are, many of them, eminently adapted to express its character. For example, thinking is allowed to be of the same origin as thing. Indeed, in some of the Teutonic languages we find the word spelt in the same manner. Now what is thinking, but the mind receiv ing or employing the knowledge of “things”? In a word, it is mental thinging. It is supposed by some that thing, think, and the Latin "tingo, I paint or colour," are words of the same origin. Whether this be true or not, it is certain that "thinking" is mental painting. The mind has the mysterious power of carrying about with it the mental representations of the various objects presented to its senses. It can recal them or paint them again at pleasure; or it can, if I may use such a word, mingle their colours, and thus produce new combinations or creations of its own.

In the Icelandic language the word "mind" signifies an image or likeness. In their translation of the Bible they read, "And God said, Let us make man after our mind and likeness:" and again, "God skapade (shaped) man after his mind, after God's

« ForrigeFortsæt »